American Royals

American Royals is the tale of what might happen if America had been a monarchy. It follows four girls:

• Beatrice, the heir - soon to be queen, the biggest rule follower

• Samantha, the spare - Beatrice's little sister, who likes to be crazy

• Nina, the commoner - Sam's best friend, who is in love with the prince

• Daphne, the schemer - who is just a girl who wants to be a princess, no matter what it takes

Those terms were what the back of the book said, and honestly couldn't put it any other way. I liked this book pretty well! It was well written and all the characters had many layers. All four girls have different stories that overlap a little bit.

When we first meet Beatrice, her parents are urging her to get married and they have arranged a ball where she can meet some suitors. Nina is introduced as Sam's calmer best friend and her chapter discusses her friendship with the princess from childhood. Daphne used to date the prince, and after their breakup she wants him back, no matter the cost.

Honestly, throughout the whole book, although the author was trying to paint Daphne as the villain, I just hated Sam. Sam made everything about her, despite being the only character to probably suffer the smallest hardship. Beatrice was being forced to marry even though she loved someone else, and was also the person under the most public eye, Nina was getting hated on by everyone in America for something she really couldn't control, and even Daphne wasn't having the best time either. Sam did have problems, but they didn't seem as bad as everyone else and she just drove me mad. I made five notes in the book about how much I dislike her.

I did find it funny that they kept poking into "What if our government was different? Nah..."

I ended up giving the book 4 stars, I did like the book on a whole, most of the characters were fairly likeable and interesting. Overall a good book, I would recommend. It really wasn't as similar to the Selection as I thought it would be, but if you like Selection you might like this book.